Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The project ‘Women’s Security Index’ (WSI) is measuring the sense of safety and security of women active in different social struggles in Israel. In the Israeli discourse the term security (“bitachon”) is used mostly in the military sense. But is this really the one and only level relevant to women’s sense of security, or even the biggest one? What are the elements that contribute to women’s sense of safety and security and what undermines it? The Women’s Security Index aims at broadening this narrow definition and understanding of women’s safety by relating it to issues of health, social, political, economy, physical, as well as sexual and gender identity, etc.

Following a growing sense of escalation in violence used by security forces and civilians to silence and intimidate women activists, Coalition of Women for Peace and Women’s Security Index set a goal to research and present activists’ security from a feminist perspective. We believe there’s a need to develop a strategy and build safety nets to strengthen the activists’ security. In order to present an in depth analysis with reliable information, we conducted a survey concerning security issues among Palestinian and Jewish women activists who live in Israel.

“The protest came to an end when the last protestors who came from Haifa got on a bus and left. Or so we thought. This was actually the beginning. At this point, there remained about 50 protestors, mainly from Haifa, who had come by foot or by car. Our intention was to go home. The police began dispersing as well, but the extreme right- wing protestors did not show any signs of dispersing. On the contrary, they just kept multiplying. Not only that, we soon realized that they were spread out in groups in all the alleys surrounding us, behind bushes at the entrances to buildings, everywhere, ambushing protestors trying to leave. My friends and I (at this point we were 6 or 7) tried to leave through the backyard of one of the buildings, and soon were chased back by angry protestors who ambushed us with the intention of attacking us physically.”[1]

This is only a glimpse of what women activists face every day in Israel.

[1] From Khuloud Khamis’s testimony about a demonstration in Haifa against the attack on Gaza in the summer of 2014. First published on her blog.

Organizations and international institutions are warning that Gaza is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis[1] in spite of the humanitarian aid provided by the international community. Already now, Gaza is facing a water crisis, extreme pollution, electricity shortage, restricted access to health services and education as well as economic distress. All these hardships turn life into a daily struggle for survival for Gaza’s residents, both women and men. Amidst all this, women are dealing with a wide range of gender specific challenges[2]. This situation is the cumulative outcome of a decade-long siege on Gaza, in addition to the frequent military offensives on the strip every few years, and the failed attempts at reconstruction in-between these rounds.

The Gaza strip is under a high degree of effective control by Israel and is therefore under its occupation. Israel has repeatedly refused to fulfill its obligations under international law.

Therefore, we turn to the UN and EU, to hold Israel accountable and to ensure human rights for Gaza’s residents.

On the 18th day of the ‘dignity strike’, a hunger strike of 1500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, the Israeli Prison Service continues to employ arbitrary methods to subdue them: After prisoners refused to drink water, their health is deteriorating and they were put into solitary confinement.

Currently there are 6300 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, including 500 administrative detainees, 300 children and 61 women, 70 Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, 480 prisoners from Jerusalem and 330 prisoners from Gaza, as well as 13 members of the Palestinian legislative council.

The main demands of the prisoners refer to an end to administration detention of 500 administrative detainees; an end to the policy of solitary confinement; improvements in visitation rights; an end to medical negligence; the release of prisoners with special needs and terminal diseases; an increase in the number of visitations and phone calls with family members; and an improvement in the living conditions of the political prisoners according to international humanitarian standards.

We, as the Coalition of Women for Peace, see this treatment of prisoners as yet another layer in the policies of oppression, violence and occupation of the Israeli authorities against the Palestinian people. The prisoners demand basic humanitarian rights and appropriate conditions in accordance with international law. Now on the 18th day of the hunger strike, intervention is a necessity. We call on the Embassies located in Israel to promote the prisoners’ demands and pressure the Israeli government to fulfill its commitments under international law.

Include women and youth in all analysis and policy decisions related to Gaza.

Ensure Israeli accountability for its human rights violations in Gaza.

Organizations and international institutions are warning that Gaza is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis[1] in spite of the humanitarian aid provided by the international community. Already now, Gaza is facing a water crisis, extreme pollution, electricity shortage, restricted access to health services and education as well as economic distress. All these hardships turn life into a daily struggle for survival for Gaza’s residents, both women and men. Amidst all this, women are dealing with a wide range of gender specific challenges[2]. This situation is the cumulative outcome of a decade-long siege on Gaza, in addition to the frequent military offensives on the strip every few years, and the failed attempts at reconstruction in-between these rounds.

The Gaza strip is under a high degree of effective control by Israel and is therefore under its occupation. Israel has repeatedly refused to fulfill its obligations under international law.

Therefore, we turn to the UN and EU, to hold Israel accountable and to ensure human rights for Gaza’s residents.

Who Profits Research Center and the Coalition of Women for Peace have joined together to publish this up-to-date position paper on Palestinian women’s struggle against the Israeli control of population, manifested in the
checkpoint industry

The position paper sheds light on both government and corporate practices and their repercussions on the ground
This will also be reflected through recent testimonies of Palestinian women confronting checkpoints on a day-to-day basis

While many Civil Society Organizations have been addressing the political context that governs women’s lives
under occupation, the economic factors that engineer the political system and perpetuate the power relations at hand are still in need of greater attention
The Israeli checkpoints, as military structures, have been a symbol of the Israeli control of the Palestinian population. Yet, underneath these structures lies an economic infrastructure generated by corporate profit. The vast checkpoints industry includes the construction of checkpoints, security personnel and equipment provided by Israeli and international companies

The position paper address the checkpoint industry in the occupied West Bank as a case study of the integral part played by corporate stakeholders in oppressing Palestinian population and women specifically

A series of videos of Women from Susiya and the Jordan Valley talking about their daily reality of living under Israeli
occupation- part of Coalition of Women for Peace campaign that aims to expose the Israeli oppressive policies in
the occupied territories that work with impunity, and to create a civil mechanism to oppose them

The BDS movement and its supporters in Israel have been subject in the past few years to increasingly more blatant and institutional forms of silencing and public demonization. First flagged by the extreme right, support for BDS is now restricted by law, through the anti-boycott legislation (July 2011). In April 2015 this anti-democratic law won the stamp of legitimacy from the Israeli High Court of Justice. Most recently the issue has been taken up by public figures, politicians and the Israeli media in an orchestrated campaign to turn the BDS movement and its supporters into the enemies of the state and a “strategic threat.”

In the shadow of this inflammatory rhetoric and institutional incitement, we must defend the legitimacy of positions critical of the Israeli government policies of brutal occupation and apartheid. We at the Coalition of Women for Peace support and defend the rights of Palestinians to live in freedom and in dignity. We support their legitimate struggle to put an end to the Israeli occupation and ongoing oppression, and we support the call for cultural and economic boycott, divestment and international sanctions to increase pressure on Israel from the international community. This form of civil resistance is recognized as a legitimate tool within Non-Violent struggles all over the world and is particularly effective against Israel that systematically violates international norms. It is our civilian duty to resist the disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people, the political imprisonment of hundreds including children and minors, egregious military violence, land grab, and economic profiteering from the occupation.

We therefore call upon organizations who are active in the struggle against the occupation, and particularly the feminist movements in Israel, to actively defy any anti-democratic law aimed to restrict our activities and silence our protest, to stand up clearly in support of the Palestinians, and to use any legitimate tool to continue the struggle against Israeli policies and for human rights. It is of vital importance that we, activists from Israel/Palestine, join campaigns in the international arena to discourage international support and diplomatic backing for Israel’s policies. We call upon activists in Israel and all over the world to use effective means and pressure governments and the business community in order to stop their complicity with the occupation and bring about change in the status quo.

The Coalition of Women for Peace was a party to a petition against the Israeli anti-boycott law, working jointly with Adalah and The Association for Civil Rights in Israel. On Wednesday April 15 the Israeli High Court ruling left the legislation more or less intact. The only exception was to disqualify one item, that enabled anyone to sue for boycott related damages “without proof.”

The anti-boycott bill is one of a host of racist and anti-democratic legislation aimed at silencing opposition and curtailing the rights of the Palestinian minority. CWP wishes to affirm once again that boycott is a worldwide recognized and legitimate nonviolent tool in struggles for social and political change. The Israeli court failed to protect the right of citizens to voice criticism of government policies. We will not be deterred from exposing and bringing to public discussion the economic interests driving the occupation. We will continue resisting the occupation using all legitimate, nonviolent means.

With the absence of legal checks on political persecution in Israel, Netanyahu’s shocking comments on election day conveying racism and intolerance of dissent will without a doubt be written into law in the coming Knesset. The High Court decision failed to identify this grave danger. It gives a green light to anti-democratic legislation such as the Nationality bill that seeks to anchor Israel’s Jewishness in legislation; green light to instituting a death penalty for Palestinians accused of terrorism; green light to banning leftie organizations from receiving donations, effectively shutting them down.

Such bills are already a negotiating chip in the process of coalition formation. One of them even targets the authority of the legislative branch itself by proposing to prevent the High Court from intervening in Knesset and Central Election Committee decisions.

In light of the court ruling, CWP calls upon the international community to:

• Condemn the attack on Israeli civil society and freedom of expression
• Affirm that the banning of any call for boycott used as a tool in the struggle against occupation is anti-democratic.
• Condemn Israel’s impunity as a so-called democracy despite its apparent disrespect of fundamental civil and human rights.

In this kit we would like to present a few key discussion points, as well as tools which can be used daily within the groups or organization in which you are active and/or working for

As a feminist organization that is working towards ending the occupation and any forms of oppression, we place great emphasis on ongoing self-examination and peer-examination. As organization and groups that advocate social change, we must see how we can help each other in creating a better and hopefully safer community. Community that advocates change and reconstruction of social orders, while being able to self-examine

?Who is this kit for

This kit is suitable for everyone – individual activists from different genders, activist groups, civil society organizations, and anyone else who might be interested